'People think that all politicians are dysfunctional but I've had a normal life'

Justine Greening with Michael Howard

By Karyn Miller

12:01AM BST 08 May 2005

At 10 o'clock on Thursday evening few in Britain knew who Justine Greening was. But two and half hours later, she had taken Putney from Labour's Tony Colman with a solid 1,766 majority, and had become the standard bearer for a re-energised Conservative Party.

She is delighted to be overturning the image of young Tories as braying male yuppies with premature pattern baldness.

"If that image ever existed, it doesn't exist now," said the new MP. Blonde, blue-eyed and fiercely articulate - the latter despite a sleepless night celebrating her win - this 36 -year-old firebrand is a boon to her party.

Evidently, her multiple charms are extremely effective when it comes to fighting marginal seats. Her south-west London constituency, once David Mellor's, was the first Conservative gain to be declared on election night. Famously, when Mr Mellor lost the seat to Labour in 1997, his defeat met with jeers and slow handclapping from the late Sir James Goldsmith and the other candidates

Related Articles

On Thursday, the restitution of the seat, 52nd on the Conservatives' list of targets, was an early sign of the party's changing fortunes. When it was announced that Miss Greening had wrested it from Mr Colman, there were cheers and whoops. Mr Colman was forced to admit that Putney had become a "Labour-free zone".

As the night drew on, the Conservatives grabbed a further eight London seats. The achievement was not to be replicated elsewhere in the country but was, Miss Greening now predicts, the beginnings of a "mushroom" effect.

"It is just the beginning. Where London goes first, the rest will follow."

A few years ago, when Labour was at the height of its popularity, she was the lone Tory voter among her friends, and the butt of many of their jokes. Times have changed. Last week, a number of those who had mocked her were out canvassing on her behalf.

She insisted that younger voters, far from being politically apathetic, are there for the taking. "Labour has become the Establishment. If young people can see Conservatives who are clearly within their age range, then that's a start because we are faced with similar issues."

The significance of her win, together with her looks and the word that Michael Howard regards her as one of the party's brightest young hopes, has prompted a deluge of media interest.

On Friday afternoon at her Putney home, a modest Victorian terrace, the telephone was ringing off the hook with journalists desperate to speak to her. Outside, a car was waiting to whisk her away for television appearances. Two cats, oblivious to the clamour, wandered among the heaps of surplus campaign literature that carpeted the sitting-room floor.

"I know that I am not the 'stereotypical' Conservative candidate people might have expected," she acknowledged. "People have got to the stage where they think that politicians are quite dysfunctional people, and they couldn't possibly imagine bumping into them in Tesco. But I have had a normal life. Pretty average, really."

Lady Thatcher is her "idol" - "for standing up for what she believed in and communicating that to people very well".

The admission is surprising because Lady Thatcher and her legacy appear to be out of favour. This election was the first in 70 years in which the former prime minister took no part. Her offer to help the election fight was reportedly "rejected by Conservative high command".

This could be about to change. Miss Greening said that Lady Thatcher appeals to younger voters. "She is coming back into fashion. She is 'retro cool'," she said, before catching herself and deploying a sterner expression. "But to talk about her as if she was some political 'fashion accessory' is terrible."

As an ambitous young female MP, does Miss Greening hope to emulate this predecessor's achievements?

"Meaningless question," she snorted.

Then again, it does indicate a certain level of commitment, not to say gumption, to have grown up a diehard Conservative in Rotherham, a South Yorkshire steel town, in the 1980s. "I have always been a natural Conservative," she said with pride. "I never could understand how the steel industry could be subsidised forever. I resented that nobody had taken action before."

She will not be the first strident young Tory to come out of Rotherham and make a mark - the town also produced William Hague.

Until his retirement Miss Greening's father worked in an office in the steel industry; her mother was a housewife. She grew up in a semi, attended state schools, and became the first member of her family to go to university.

After reading economics at Southampton and gaining an MBA at the London Business School, Miss Greening became a financial manager at Centrica, which owns British Gas.

Childless and single, she lives alone with her cats but is a governor of a local primary school.

Her background, she believes, has reaped rewards. "The way forward is for local associations, such as Putney, to select candidates to whom they feel their voters can relate. Here, the average age of a voter is 35. There are slightly more women than men.

"Something like 58 per cent of Putney residents have degrees. On paper, my profile is that of a typical Putney resident."

Her campaign, like those of other Conservatives who won on Thursday, was run on local issues. For two years she has orchestrated popular drives to improve the local train service, monitor noisy night flights from Heathrow and prevent property developers taking over the green.

Now that she has reached Parliament, she is looking forward to making herself heard. "The party has regained its confidence, and we're seeing that we can stand up for people.

"Tony Blair has made his bed - and I fully intend to tuck him up in it."